Personal Information:My name is Travis Multhaupt and I will be your IB Biology teacher. I graduated from Michigan State University in 1996, with a Bachelor of Science in Lyman Briggs Zoology. Upon graduation, I entered graduate school (at MSU) and taught a number of science courses at the University level. During this time I also entered the Teacher Education program offered by MSU and completed it in the spring of 1999. U.S. News and World Report routinely rates this program the best education school in the country, and I believe it helped me sharpen my skills as a teacher. During the summer of 2000, I completed my Master’s Degree in Zoology. My research entailed studying the effects of platinum containing chemotherapeutic drugs on various tissues and their enzyme systems in the Wistar rat. My graduate course work included many biology and chemistry courses as well as some course work in teacher methodology.

Me in the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. This is the skull of a California Saber-tooth Tiger.

Introduction:Biology is a fascinating subject. It has many applications that transcend society. From agriculture to medicine, many of the applications of biology have a profound impact on our daily lives. Whether it is the serendipitous discovery of the effects platinum containing compounds inhibiting the growth of cells in culture, or the engineering of a drought resistant crop that enables populations of people to survive and prosper in an arid environment, biology is like no other science. The scientific study of life requires the student to have a working knowledge of physics, mathematics, and chemistry, and like no other subject, biology ties all of these disciplines together in fundamental ways that allows us to make sense of the living world.

Me at Shanghai University in Shanghai, China in July of 2009.

Instructor’s Philosophy:

As a biology teacher, it is my job to enlighten and inform students of how the science impacts their daily lives and how it is related to many other areas of science. Biology is the study of life and the processes that keep it going. Being one of the most fundamental sciences, biology is unique in that it requires students to be able to read well and think critically, to be able to analyze situations and relate them to other areas of science, and to interpret data both qualitatively and quantitatively. Moreover, biology is unique in that it requires students to have a working knowledge of math, chemistry, and to a lesser extent physics. Having the ability to tie these three sciences together and relate them to biology is extremely important. Biology itself is central to many other areas of science such as genetics, microbiology, biochemistry and ecology to name a few. Thus, building a solid core in biology is extremely important because it not only helps students make sense of the world around them, it also lays the foundations for future coursework. In addition to the general coursework, biology requires students to develop good laboratory skills. The skills learned in this course will be used repeatedly throughout your time in science. As such, developing good skills now will help you immensely when taking lab-based courses in the future.Be that person people look up to and great things will happen.